


your hands in mine

by hyenateeth



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/F, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 14:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3329318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyenateeth/pseuds/hyenateeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knew no one would believe her is she told them, but she knew the princess, once upon a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your hands in mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lottielovebuzz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lottielovebuzz/gifts).



Éponine had vague memories of the woman, the one with long blonde hair, the color of wheat when its harvested, who dropped off a child at her parents inn one day. The woman had been young, thin and fragile, the complete antithesis of Éponine’s own mother. 

She had certainly not been royalty. 

That was a secret Éponine kept close to her heart. She told no one, and no one asked.

* * *

The princess did not have hair like wheat. More like the honey her sister spooned onto her her toast every morning when they were children, somewhere between dark gold and brown, and it was long and beautiful, falling beautifully around her shoulders when she left her castle, waving from her carriage as the peasant children waved at her procession. It could not be more unlike Éponine’s dark hair, which she kept short, out of the way. 

Éponine’s life was not made of waving at children from her ivory tower after all.

Éponine did what she had to to survive. She stole and she scammed and she fought. She drank and smoked and lived where she could.

She always watched when the royal procession went through town, to catch a glimpse of the princess, secretly hoping the princess would catch a glimpse of her.

* * *

King Ultime Fauchelevent was a fair king, a peaceful king, but that did not spare him from rumors. 

Theirs was a small kingdom after all, and the situation of the kings crowning had been odd. The royal family line was not a particularly strong one, and the old king had had no heirs, no brothers or sisters, nearly no family at all. 

So, it was a bit of a shock when a successor was named, an older noble man who was supposedly the cousin once or twice removed to the aging king. He had a daughter too, though no wife, a widower who raised his daughter alone. 

Awfully convenient, some people whispered, how this distant relative was discovered less than a year before the old king passed. 

Éponine did not know anything about the legitimacy of the king, and did not care. She had been a child when he took the throne. 

She did know about the princess though. 

She knew no one would believe her is she told them, but she knew the princess, once upon a time. Had known her before she was a princess, when she was just the little girl that swept her mother’s floor, a little servant for the once intact Thénardier house. 

One day though, a man in dirty, threadbare clothes had come and taken this little girl away. Éponine had not thought of their small maid again.

Until, years later, she was a procession through the city, and there she was, waving. 

What a perfect rags to riches story; what perfect symmetry to Éponine’s own fall into rags. What beautiful justice. No one would ever believe her if she told them.

* * *

No one would believe her that she met the princess either.

* * *

“Wait,” Éponine had gasped, impulsively grabbing the girl’s pale wrists. It was wrong, it was potentially treason, for a peasant like her, with dirty hands she used to steal, to touch royalty that way. She would get her hands chopped off, if not her head.

But Éponine never knew what was best for her. 

“I know you,” she told the princess. She was not dressed like a princess, with a plain black dress and a scarf wrapped around her hair, like any common housewife would wear when going to market. But it was her. Éponine knew. Éponine _knew._

“You must be mistaken-” started the princess, and no, Éponine was not mistaken. Her voice was too soft and too full of music to be from these slums that Éponine lived in. 

“I know you,” she repeated breathlessly. 

“You are mistaken madame, please I must go my-” 

“Princess, please-”

The girl’s eyes widened, and the look on her face was somewhere between terror and anger. 

“Please,” she said, and her voice was not so timid now. “You are mistaken madame, and I need to go. My father-”

It was a threat, in a way. Éponine understood it: That she is touching the daughter of the king and that that is dangerous in and of itself.

She needed to though. She felt manic, head spinning.

“Its me, you know me,” Éponine insisted, tugging on the princess’ delicate wrists. “Please, Princess, I’m-”

“You need to let me go-”

“Éponine! I’m Éponine, Éponine Thénardier you- you used to sweep my mothers floors-”

The girl’s expression changed suddenly. “You...”

“Yes, you remember me don’t you? We were children together- I remember your mother’s hair and when that man took you away and-”

“Éponine!” 

Éponine had to stop and whirl around, to see Montparnasse, in his fine clothes truly not befitting of a rogue such as himself, gesturing at her. 

“Guard,” he hissed at her. “Heading this way!” And then he disappeared into the crowd of the marketplace. 

“Ah,” hummed Éponine. Then she turned back to the princess. “Your father then.”

“You-”

“No time! I need to go.” Before she released the girl’s thin, royal wrist though, she leaned in to whisper to her.

“I won’t tell anyone, understand?” 

Then she let her go, turned, and ran.

* * *

“Who was that girl?” asked Montparnasse, later that night. 

Montparnasse was a peculiar sort, grew up poorer that Éponine but seemed to act like he was rich. He was a thief too, like her, but he was more than a thief, and Éponine could not quite bring herself to go as far as him. Éponine grew up wanting to be a knight, like the ones that paraded through towns when they came back from a quest, only to realize that dream was impossible. 

Montparnasse, though, grew up with no such dreams. He grew up with a very real knife in his hand instead of a fake sword. 

Éponine just shrugged at his question. “Just someone I used to know.” Then, because Montparnasse would catch her in a lie, she told the truth, or rather, part of it. “She was my mother’s servant girl, when we were both very young.”

“A _servant_?”

“I told you, we were well off once.” Éponine reached into her pocket, jingled the coins she had stolen that day, absent-minded. “Besides, it was only for a few years. Her mother was a mad woman. You know my family. Nothing if not... charitable.”

Montparnasse’s laugh was ugly, but also charming in a way. Éponine laughed too.

She didn’t tell Montparnasse the rest of the story. He wouldn’t believe her if she did.

* * *

Rightly, she didn’t even know why she grabbed the princess’ arm that day. To prove that her own memories were real, perhaps. Or maybe, maybe it was because Éponine’s mother had raised her on romantic stories, knights, princesses, rags to riches, and though Éponine had never had that romantic life, maybe she wanted to at least be a footnote in someone else’s. 

What she did not want was to be dragged to the castle in the middle of the night by some guards. 

She wasn’t exactly imprisoned; they put her into a carriage with lush, violet padding on the seats that was soft under her fingers. Éponine did not let her guard down though. She was not stupid enough to outright refuse Royal Guards when they showed up asking for her, but she had a dagger tucked into her belt, ready to use. 

Nervously she leaned against the door of the carriage, trying to hear something beyond the rumbling of wheels and the clopping of horses.

Faintly, she could hear the two guards speaking to each other.

“...caught me raiding the wine,” one of them was saying. “And I told him I was off duty for the night, which I _was_ , but he still gave me a tongue lashing-”

“You know the Captain hates drunkenness,” said the other, a laugh in his voice. 

“He hates my drunkenness in particular; never gives Courfeyrac or Bossuet-”

Éponine stopped listening. Clearly they were saying nothing of any importance to her. She instead busied herself trying to figure out how long they had been traveling, and how long away the palace really was. 

That was what kept her attention until she head the halting of horses and felt the carriage grinding to a stop, voices speaking outside.

Éponine braced herself, grabbing the dagger in her belt, waiting for the doors to swing open. She was ready, and if she had to she would fight them, Royal Guard or no and-

It was not a guard who opened the door to her carriage.

It was the princess. 

“What-” gasped Éponine, at the same time the Princess sighed in relief.

“Thank goodness, I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” she said, climbing into the dark carriage with Éponine. She was no longer dressed like a commoner, wearing a lush gown made of velvet, but, Éponine realized with some shock as she climbed in, she was barefoot. Surely the princess could afford fine slippers? Éponine was used to being barefoot herself, sometimes stealing men’s boots in the winter, but-

“I wanted to speak to you again,” said the princess furtively, clasping Éponine’s hand. 

“Princess,” gasped Éponine, still amazed. Then, she realized the gravity of her situation. Normally, Éponine was too proud to bow to anyone, she did bow her head to the princess. “I-I am sorry for my disrespect in the market, I-”

“What? No, no. I just... I didn’t get to say anything to you then.”

Éponine looked back up. The princess was looking at her, eyes wide. Her honey hair looked brown in the low light. (Only low. Some light shone in from outside. Likely, wherever they were at the moment, there were torches outside.)

“I remember you Éponine,” said the princess simply. 

Éponine’s heart skipped a beat, but she did not know if it was out of joy or fear.

There was a worry, she always had in the back of her mind. The princess had not only just been her maid once, she had also been her scapegoat. Often, Éponine had bullied the small girl.

And always, in the back of her mind, she had feared retribution once the tables had been turned, on top of the fact that, to her knowledge, she was the only one of her family who had deduced the identity of the princess.

And as a result, though she had been very bold before, now she did not know what to say for a moment.

Then she recovered, jerking her hand away from the princess. “I was speaking true when I said I would tell no one- I have told no one, nor would anyone believe me if I did; you needn't have your guards kidnap me to ensure my silence again.”

“Kidnap you? No Éponine, I merely asked them to fetch you-”

“There is little difference when a peasant such as me is faced with the Royal Guard.”

“If you did not wish to come-”

“How would I have said no to one so far in rank above me?”

The princess drew back, obviously dismayed. 

“I... I did not think of it that way.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have to.”

I am sorry, it is just...” The princess wrung her hands nervously before forcing them to sit in her lap, demure and lady like. “I must confess. I did have an ulterior motive for bringing you here.”

“Ah.”

“It is... You said you remembered my mother. And I do not. And-And I was hoping you could tell me about her.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes. Papa will tell me little more than her name.”

“ _Papa_ ,” breathed in some awe. “You mean the king.”

“Yes. That is who I mean.”

Éponine leaned against the wall of the carriage. She truthfully barely remembered the woman. She remembered her hair, and her thin wrists, and she remembered her own mother throwing a clay cup at the small maid, calling her the daughter of a madwoman.

(“Batty,” her mother had snapped. “Blathered madness, a sheer lunatic.”)

She had nothing to tell the Princess.

“What would you give me?” she asked, her voice hard. “For my information. What would you give me?”

“Give-”

“You are royalty now, though we both know you were not born so; you have riches surely. I have none, except for what I steal. You became rich while I starved, and perhaps that is fair, no, I know that is fair, but I don’t care for fairness. So, what is this information worth to you Princess?”

The princess stared for a moment, then set her delicate, petal like mouth in a determined line. “Whatever you should like, within reason I imagine. If it is money, I can give you that.” 

Éponine didn’t speak for a moment, just looked at the princess. Then she had to look away, shaking your head. 

“No. No, I don’t want your royal charity. I don’t know anything worth telling.”

“But you said-”

“I remember that your mother’s hair was yellow, lighter than your own, and I remember her being thin. That is all I know. I saw her but once and I could not have been a year older than you. That is all I know, and you may have that meagre information for free.” 

The princess’ hands moved from her lap as she began to wring them again. “I see.” 

“I am sorry I do not know more. Truly.” 

“No, I... Its fine.” Then the princess looked at her very resolutely. “You can stay the night here, if you wish. Not in the carriage, of course, but in the castle- it gets cold at night.”

“No. No, I told you I don’t want your charity.”

“Its not char-”

“It is, and I am sure others may appreciate it, but I don’t. My sinful pride. I must be back to the city, regardless.”

“Your family is expecting you?”

“Hardly. Does your father know you are stuffed into a carriage with one of his subjects?”

The light was too low to tell if a blush dusted the Princess’ cheeks, but Éponine thought maybe it did.

“I... asked this matter to be kept between me and a couple of my trusted Guards.”

“I thought as much. I should go now your majesty.”

She nodded, and turned to leave the carriage. Then, before opening the door, she stopped.

“Éponine? I should like it if you would call me as you did when we were children.”

Éponine felt herself bristle. “I could not.” 

“I would you did.”

“When we were children I treated you-”

“Please. No one calls me by my name anymore. I would like it if you did.”

Éponine bit her lip.

“If that is your wish... Cosette.”

The princess’ face burst out in a smile, and Éponine’s chest tightened.

“Thank you Éponine.”

And then she was out the door, Éponine’s heart racing in her wake.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was for an Éponine/Cosette fantasy AU and I don't know how well I did filling it but I hope you like it! Second half will be up asap.


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